Episode Report Card Djb: C | 3 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Sixty-Seven Weddings And Nine Funerals
By Djb | Season 4 | Episode 10 | Aired on 08.21.2004
What the hell did Brightstrips do to deserve this? I mean, besides write a very large check, I imagine. Although they seem to be of kind of an indeterminate brand, so it is possible we're watching Vanessa apply the product to remind us of her evolving makeover. Vanessa peels off a strip and pastes it over her top row of teeth at the exact moment the phone rings. Rico is on the other end of the phone, sitting in his car, not getting a blowjob for a change, telling Vanessa with determination, "I wanna see my kids." He tells her he wants to drive them to karate the following day and then to lunch, but Vanessa gives an excuse about a carpool and Rico erupts, "You can't keep me from seeing my kids." She tells him that's not what she's trying to do at all, and then tells him that he should just come to the house the following day. Rico pauses and asks, "At the house?" She rolls her eyes and responds, "Yes, that would be better." Because no one has a job on this show ever anymore, he tells her that he'll come from 2 until 4, but she tells him that he should come from 3 to 5 instead, because there's nothing more fun than a game of "Planner," with the possible exception of watching a wild game of it unfold on your television screen. Do my teeth look like they're getting a little yellow to you guys?
George and Ruth stand in profile, silhouetted against a giant window in one of the Sad Rooms. It's the most unnecessarily faux-artsy shot I've seen on this show in a long time, and when a little research shows that Peter Care, the director of this episode, was also responsible for the cinematic hellscape that was The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys, I say a silent hosanna that this scene features neither a lengthy animated sequence or a Culkin, and I move on. George is still crying, explaining to Ruth, "I was hauling this box of meteorites out to the car, and I thought, 'How many times you gonna keep doing this?'" Ruth, still with a little residual case of the Saucy Bettinas, asks in as even a tone as possible, "We're supposed to stay together because you don't want to move your rocks?" No, he argues, instead saying that they should stay together because of...love. Awwwwww. But she has some conditions. Condition #1: "I don't want to feel bad every time I ask you a question." Well then, maybe she could help him out by not asking SO MANY FUCKING QUESTIONS! He doesn't say that. But it would have been awesome if he'd gone all Barton Fink on her again. Condition #2: "I want a healthy, continuous flow of family around here. Like making a space for Kyle and Becky." George joins us in a chorus of growing discontent by asking, "Becky?" We learn this is the resurrection of a dizzyingly old plot thread in which Ruth wanted to set George's crazy black sheep son up with some weird girl we'd never seen before or since. Not to mention that fact that the last time we saw her, her name was totally "Betsy." At least in the recap. George puts his hand to his brow and seems somewhat challenged by this one, and I jump right back into the "his kids hate him, so leave the kids alone" I feel in regard to all of George's children. Ruth? Mind your umurawi. Ruth continues on: "I set them up." WHEN? From Mexico? That doesn't make any sense. "Not to mention your other children, Brian and Maggie." Anyone else sensing a season-finale dinner party the likes of which we won't soon forget? "And I need to feel like you like me again." George promises, "Ruth, you're my favorite person," which I actually really like as a sentiment. He promises her, "I'll try." Then he breaks down in tears again and Ruth hugs him and whispers, "You poor thing." I guess this wouldn't be the time to tell her he was downstairs trying to download divorce papers from www.youweretheworstmistakeofmylife.com/forms.